Software Engineer - Apollo Systems

The Role

Apollo is Palantir’s autonomous software management and deployment platform. It enables seamless, continuous delivery of mission-critical software (Foundry, Gotham, AIP) across a vast range of environments: on-prem, public cloud, disconnected (air-gapped) networks, and highly regulated settings (including IL-5 and FedRAMP).

As a Software Engineer on the Apollo team, you’ll build and operate a large-scale distributed system to allow the remote operation and maintenance of Kubernetes clusters. Our mission is to extract the entire state of a cluster into a portable, high-performance artifact within minutes, enabling full and almost instant cluster reconstruction from the ground up—all while pushing the limits of speed, reliability, and scale.

You’ll design and implement backup and restore solutions for Kubernetes, leveraging proprietary compression infrastructure tailored to Palantir’s unique deployment models. You’ll also build and optimize our container artifact store, which is based on the OCI (Open Container Initiative) distribution spec—the industry standard for storing and distributing container images and artifacts. You’ll own the backbone of every environment Apollo supports, from hyperscalers to Army trucks.

If you’re excited by challenges at the intersection of container technologies like OCI and docker, storage, and distributed systems, you’ll find opportunities here to dive deep into storage formats and low-level optimizations, where milliseconds matter. As we increasingly automate cluster creation and management on diverse hardware, you’ll play a key role in scaling Palantir’s presence at the edge and solving tough distributed systems problems. You’ll own the full development lifecycle—from idea generation and design, through implementation, to operation and support—while collaborating closely with both technical and non-technical stakeholders to deliver robust, impactful infrastructure.

The usage of AI tools (Claude Code/Codex/Copilot) is highly encouraged!

Core Responsibilities

• Build and maintain highly available systems responsible for orchestration of software deployment across hundreds of production environments
• Develop performance sensitive storage features and optimizations to store and serve Palantir products
• Engage and solve problems that customers need today with a tight feedback loop for what is important and what works
• Working directly with other teams to solve problems that cross the team boundary
• Debug complex issues and performance problems throughout the stack, including open source

What We Value

• Systems programming experience with strong proficiency in golang, Java or equivalent. This is a highly hands on, code writing heavy position!
• Some familiarity with containers (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes) at scale
• Experience working with hosted container registries such as Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), Google Artifact Registry, or Azure Container Registry (ACR) is highly desirable
• Familiarity with the OCI Distribution Spec and open source registry projects (e.g., distribution/distribution,Harbor)
• Experience designing, building, and operating high-scale observability or infrastructure systems
• Experience building high-quality software in a fast-paced CI/CD development environment
• High empathy for developer and operators workflows and productivity

What We Require

• 4+ years of professional software development experience on core infrastructure with emphasis on operational excellence
• 2+ years of experience contributing to the system design or architecture (architecture, design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent

Salary

The estimated salary range for this position is estimated to be $145,000 - $200,000/year. Total compensation for this position may also include Restricted Stock units, sign-on bonus and other potential future incentives. Further note that total compensation for this position will be determined by each individual's relevant qualifications, work experience, skills, and other factors. This estimate excludes the value of any potential sign-on bonus; the value of any benefits offered; and the potential future value of any long-term incentives.

Benefits

• Employees (and their eligible dependents) can enroll in medical, dental, and vision insurance as well as voluntary life insurance
• Employees are automatically covered by Palantir’s basic life, AD&D and disability insurance
• Commuter benefits
• Relocation assistance
• Take what you need paid time off, not accrual based
• 2 weeks paid time off built into the end of each year (subject to team and business needs)
• 10 paid holidays throughout the calendar year
• Supportive leave of absence program including time off for military service and medical events
• Paid leave for new parents and subsidized back-up care for all parents
• Fertility and family building benefits including but not limited to adoption, surrogacy, and preservation
• Stipend to help with expenses that come with a new child
• Employees can enroll in Palantir’s 401k plan

Life at Palantir

In keeping consistent with Palantir’s values and culture, we believe employees are “better together” and in-person work affords the opportunity for more creative outcomes. Therefore, we encourage employees to work from our offices to foster connectivity and innovation. Many teams do offer hybrid options (WFH a day or two a week), allowing our employees to strike the right trade-off for their personal productivity.

Based on business need, there are a few roles that allow for “Remote” work on an exceptional basis. If you are applying for one of these roles, you must work from the state in which you are employed. If the posting is specified as Onsite, you are required to work from an office.